While under the pressure of streaming services, retailers are actively curtailing sales of discs and records, HMV is betting on the opening of the largest music store in Europe. The area of HMV Vault is almost 25 000 sq ft; it is located in Birmingham, UK. Visitors will have access to 80,000 CDs, 25,000 vinyl albums, 40,000 DVDs and 20,000 Blu-ray discs.
In addition to the albums, players and headphones will also be available in the store. There will also be 7,000 different books and attributes such as posters, t-shirts, and mugs with music prints. Thus HMV Vault will be not merely a point of sale. As expected, the shop will become a place for meetings and communication, will turn into a must-visit place for tourists. It also provides a place for groups and DJs to perform. It is planned to open a cafe.
A lot of attention will be paid to staff recruitment. Sellers at HMV Vault will have to be good at music. According to HMV management, streaming services are inadequate because they dump millions of songs on the user. Coming to the HMV Vault, the client will be able to get only what is interesting, the best of everything that has been created recently.
The opening of the HMV Vault is part of the plans to transform the company’s store network. The market of physical carriers is still big enough. Besides, there will always be people who simply do not like the idea of streaming services. For the last year, the share of HMV reduced by 3%, but at the same time, the percentage of Amazon increased by the same number. That is why the company decided to bet on what the world’s largest online store can not offer by definition. Namely – the opportunity to literally plunge into the world of music, to find like-minded people, and just have a good time.
Network HMV adjusts under the new realities. Some of the stores were closed, but others have changed. In general, the company is very optimistic.
